


Necessary Distance

by Callmesalticidae, shadow_wasserson



Series: The Gods Have Horns [10]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: (love is still so precious), Abandonment, Alternate Universe - Gods & Goddesses, Anger, Cuddling, Gen, Motherhood, Regret, broodfester lullabies, love is a chemical, such anger, weight of ages
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-30
Updated: 2015-05-30
Packaged: 2018-04-01 22:42:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,635
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4037305
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Callmesalticidae/pseuds/Callmesalticidae, https://archiveofourown.org/users/shadow_wasserson/pseuds/shadow_wasserson
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They have called you Leviathan Mother. She Who Has Ten Thousand Claws. The One in Relex. The Venomous Snake. But of all your uncountable names there is one which only fools and stalwarts fail to shudder at.</p><p>Once upon a time you took on the mantle of the Witch of Life. But before that, before everything else, your name was Feferi Peixes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Necessary Distance

**Author's Note:**

> Companion piece to "Survival Lessons."

> “To live in this world you must be able to do three things: to love what is mortal; to hold it against your bones knowing your own life depends on it; and, when the time comes to let it go, to let it go.” Mary Oliver,  _In Blackwater Woods_.

* * *

I.

Names. You have names beyond number. You are known across a galaxy of galaxies, from the Subspace Disk and the Relona Filament to Harrishuttel-2 and the Economic Principality of Fircant.

You were born heir to a throne, and then you ascended beyond a need for thrones. For ten billion years and more your countless names have passed through lips, fluttered on phosphorescent skins, and been signed by tentacles and limbs stranger yet, all in prayers and homage to you.

They have called you Leviathan Mother. She Who Has Ten Thousand Claws. The One in Relex. The Venomous Snake. But of all your uncountable names there is one which only fools and stalwarts fail to shudder at.

Once upon a time you took on the mantle of the Witch of Life. But before that, before everything else, your name was Feferi Peixes.

* * *

II.

You stretch your jaws, not bothering to conceal a yawn as you follow Sollux Captor down the halls of the SkaiaNet complex. He said that the business was urgent, and your presence was needed “right fucking now.” You wouldn’t have guessed it from how slowly he leads you down, how he refuses to tell you anything at all.

What is he to you? Matesprit, auspistice, moirail, kismesis— he has been all these things to you, and other things which the old Alternian tongue cannot describe. Fifteen billion years is too long to stay in just one quadrant. But for right now, the two of you are nothing. Perhaps in another century you will be something once again.

In the bowels of the installation, Sollux pauses. He adjusts his dirty old lab coat, and then opens the door. “Old gods, meet the new,” he says as your eyes adjust to the dimness of the room. There are… a pair of children inside. Infants. Human.

A hundred thoughts rise up inside you. Why are they here? Where are their parents? Did Sollux steal them away for some reason you can only guess at? Or if they’re orphans, why have they not been abandoned at the roadside, or whatever it is that humans do with abandoned young? What is it that Sollux is planning with them? What does he  _mean_ , the new gods?

It is the last question which you decide to voice.

“It worked,” he says.

He leaves you to mull that over for a few seconds. “You rebuilt the Game? But how— you’ve only been at work for a few years…”

Sollux nods. “We won’t succeed for years, but the board is getting set up.”

“And it sent them?”

He nods again.

“And what do you need me for?”

“They need a guardian. A mentor. Someone under the radar, who nobody pays attention to.”

“So you asked the hermit.”

“Aradia said that you were the best choice. Everyone knows that you appreciate your privacy. And not even Vriska will care to intrude upon it.”

You look at the children, still so young, and run the back of your claw against the male’s cheek. It would be foolish to try and fight the future, you think. “What are their names?” And anyway, there is something stirring in you, an instinct for companionship, a yearning for company.

Sollux smiles. “They don’t have names yet.”

You’ll take them. Your wigglers. Your little grubs.

They are going to be gods.

You will never have to watch them die.

* * *

III.

For the first few years, they continue to go unnamed. They need none, and they have earned none. They _deserve_ to not be named— how could you have known what would be proper for them when they were so young? 

It is not until they are four years old that you give them their names. You take them from Hebrew, but in a modernized, abbreviated form that will not attract notice.

 _Jake_. To supplant, to assail, to hold the heel. It was the first place where he bit you, but not the last. Perhaps the boy had thought himself a shark. It means to follow, as well. To be behind, and in this the name also serves him well; just as well you might have named him “Shadow,” he follows you around so much.

 _Jane_. The creators are merciful, are gracious. For she has already demonstrated how she will extend an open hand to all the worlds in her demesne. It will break her. It will be the seed of greater strength, after she heals. The world of nature is not all red in tooth and claw, and her nurturing touch will be a boon once she has tempered it with the edge of necessity.

 _Harley_. Jake and Jane Harley. “From the hare’s meadow,” it means— or “from the eagle’s meadow.” No one will look twice at them, should they need to move about among mortals. Not until they have attained the godhood which is their birthright— and then they will have names beyond numbering.

Your only regret is that you will not be able to see it for yourself. But as you look at the stars of this universe and long for their presence, their voices, once again, you shall comfort yourself in the knowledge that they are only gone from here, and in some other place they are still alive.

* * *

IV.

You brush your knuckles against the back of Jane’s head, like your lusus did to you when you were young. She nestles her head into the crook of your neck. You whisper soft lullabies, the ones which Gl’bgolyb sang for you so long ago.

 _“Mirmi etin tuklet, shita wirg fluket jar ma…”_  

It was years before you realized that you were copying your lusus in your whispers. You continued anyway. All three of you found it comforting, you and the children. 

You continue to keep her wrapped in your arms as you reassure her that you are not disappointed. She is eleven, and perhaps too old by most human reckonings to be coddled like this, but you don’t particularly care for what most humans do. You are not human.

“Mother….” she says, her voice shaking, and you run your fingers through her hair. It’s not like having a moirail. Not quite. But on the surface, it looks somewhat similar.

“I’m proud of you,” you say. “I am so very proud of you. You’ve come a long way, and you will go further still, my puntillita.”

“Please, mother, I can’t, I won’t be able to—”

“You will, you will. I believe in you so utterly.”

“Mother, don’t…”

“Hush. You are a wonderful girl, and you are growing stronger every day. But this is important for you in so many ways.”

“Mother, please don’t make me do it. I’m just going to fail again.”

You move your hand from the back of Jane’s head to cup her face, and turn her to look at you with her big blue eyes. “Jane. You won’t fail. I know you won’t. Call it a… mother’s intuition. But you need to tell yourself that you won’t fail, or your prophecy will fulfill itself. Now say, ‘I can do it.’ Aloud.”

“I… I can do it.” Jane’s voice wavers, and her eyes look to the side.

“Say, ‘I will survive.’”

“I will s-survive.”

“Again.”

“I will survive.”

“Again! Make me believe it!”

“I will survive!” Her voice is hoarse, but louder, and almost sounds like it holds conviction.

“There.” You move your hand to the back of her head again, stroking her hair, and your voice once more becomes gentle. “You can do it, Jane. I know you can.”

You hold her until she sleeps, and the next day, you bring her to the island, and let her go.

She survives, as you knew she would, and you heal her cuts and infections with a mother’s pride. They will sing praises to her in eons to come, hymns and psalms to the glory of her name. Jane Harley, god of the new world. Jane Harley, the daughter of her mother. 

* * *

V. 

“Say it again.”

“We were wrong.”

“You lied to me.”

“What did you expect us to think? We didn’t know that the Game would give us these— these  _extras_ ,” Sollux pleads with you.

They are not going to become gods.

Their names. How  _hollow_  their names now seem to you. A mockery, a taunt.

They are going to die. You have gotten too close to them.

You thought you were  _safe_. They weren’t mortals. But they are. And you aren’t.

* * *

VI. 

You don’t bother with trying to prepare them for the news. There is nothing that you can say, and little point to it. Better to keep the blow swift and sharp and clean, than to drag this out slowly.

“As it turns out, we were wrong about you. You are not going to become gods. Our mistake,” you say, your voice smooth and level, betraying not a hint of uncertainty. You’ve grown quite good at masking your feelings in the trappings of divinity. “Anyway, you’re both old enough now, to grow up. So you’re going to leave.”

You keep your eyes in their direction. If they hate you, then they will gather strength from that. But they will reap only weakness if weakness is what they see in you.

“Mother, what did we do?”

“Mom, please. Don’t you love us?”

Such words. Such a name. Mother.  _Mother_. A billion civilizations and more have called you their mother, but none of them like your children have done. And you will never hear it again. There is a spike of grief, and you banish it.

“It’s not about love.” Love is chemical, is biology. You can shut it off by merely thinking about it, prevent yourself from feeling this maternal pain. There will be ample time for that, later.

“It’s not about you at all.” It’s never been about them, not really. It’s about the game, the end of the world. You were a fool to think it was about anything else. “I just can’t invest any more energy in you two. I’m going to take the bubble down now, so you should leave before you drown.”

They can have no place with you. That much is clear. You will not be able to keep the necessary distance. You would  _pervert_  them.

They are life. They are mortal. They will never ascend. Already you can feel yourself beginning to entertain thoughts of prolonging their lives, keeping them at your side until the stars burn out. They were not _made_ for that, to handle the weight of ages without end. They were born to die.

* * *

VII. 

You fly. In the space of a heartbeat you have flown further than you have ever flown before, reached expanses never seen by any of the gods. You descend, gently, upon the first life-bearing world you find, a world which has never before seen the gods or known their power.

And with a thought you begin to unleash devastation. You unleash plagues that spread and kill in moments. You create monsters. You kill them in ones and twos and you kill them by the millions as you crush their bones and kill their hearts. You return life to their frames and twist them into a hideous architecture, conscious all the while of the horror that is being done to them.

This is part of life. This is okay. You are not interfering beyond your bounds at all. Sometimes something unexpected happens. Sometimes disaster strikes. Sometimes there are… there are meteors, and the world you love is destroyed forever.

That’s all that this is about. Meteors.

It has been— days, months— when the world freezes around you. 

“I must be swamping you wit)( work,” you say, Tinge coloring your voice.

“there have been w0rse days,” she says.

“You )(ave a lot of nerve s)(owing yourself to me,” you snarl. “You  _knew_. You knew t)(ey wouldnt be gods. ”

“i did,” she acknowledges.

You bare your fangs, then incline your head in the direction of your latest masterpiece. “)(ow do you like it?”

“y0ure wasting y0ur time. besides,” she adds, “there was a learning curve inv0lved”

You want to fly away. Find another world where you won’t be bothered. It doesn’t matter that she’ll know what it is before you do. But her last statement hangs in the air and forces a response. “W)(at do you mean?”

“there will be an0ther”

“No.”

“y0u had to have this s0 that y0u w0uld raise her well”

“)(-Her?” you stammer, as the Tinge fades out of your voice.

Aradia puts her hands around your shoulders. “she will be named jade. f0r the c0l0r of her eyes”

You open your mouth to say more. What are her favorite foods? Does she like being read to at night? How does she wear her hair?

Aradia disappears before you can say anything at all, and the words die on the edge of your lips. It is only after you have left this waste of twisted bodies that you realize that you have already begun to think of her in the present tense. She hasn’t been born, and yet she is already here.

 _Jade_. Her name will be Jade.

* * *

VIII.

You see her eyes when you sleep. You wonder what shade they will be but Aradia never talks with you again, no matter how much you want to pump her for more information. You kill another world just to entice her to speak with you, and still she never shows herself.

You don’t need to sleep, but you find yourself doing it more and more often anyway. Sleeping lets the days go by faster.

How  _long_  will it be? As the years turn into decades and Jake and Jane grow older you begin to despair. You wonder if Aradia has lied to you, but you banish the possibility. She always tells the truth, you tell yourself. She prefers to let you fill in the gaps with misconceptions and choke on them. But she doesn’t have to lie.

(Really, you just can’t bear the thought that she lied to you)

So you wile away the days deep in thought about diversity and designer biologies (The sound of her laugh, the color of her hair). You experiment and craft as you always do, building new forms of life as if you were a potter at her wheel (You wonder if she will like this one).

And you sleep, because in your dreams you can forget yourself and pretend that she’s already here.

(There is nothing worse than the sensation of waking up; it feels like falling)

* * *

IX. 

The Barkbeast was here before any of your kind were. None of you understood it. For a time you all thought that it had something to do with Kanaya. Even she did, for a little bit, but it certainly never listened to her. It was Aradia, of course, who settled the matter, but all she saw fit to say was that it had nothing to do with any of you.

It remembers you, though. You don’t know how many centuries it’s been since you last saw each other but it remembers you. The Barkbeast follows close behind you as you enter the house, and it whines quietly when you stop at the foot of the stairs.

This is Jake’s house. He’s here. Just up the steps, three doors down on the right. He’s  _here_.

You start moving again and you don’t stop until you’ve reached the top. You haven’t come here to see him. You don’t know if you could see him without waking him and you don’t want to see the look on his face when he sees you.

But the girl sleeps like the dead. She doesn’t even twitch when you open the door and stride into her room. You sit on the floor next to her bed and just look at her. You still don’t know what shade of green her eyes are. But she is here. She is here and one day you will be able to look at her when her eyes are open, and that is  _enough_.

You turn your gaze back to the Barkbeast. Jake named him Becquerel. A good name, for a good barkbeast, you think.

You tuck a strand of hair behind her ears, and then you leave.

 _Soon_.

* * *

X.

“this isnt f0r him at all. y0u kn0w he w0uldnt want this”

“W)(at do you know about w)(at he wants? )(ave you ever even talked wit)( Jake?”

“i have watched him fr0m afar. i have sp0ken with his l0vers. i have seen him in c0untless fr0zen m0ments as i have tended t0 0thers. but m0re than this… i have sp0ken with y0u fr0m a time when y0u have regretted it”

You calm. “Then you—”

“i will d0 it” She shakes her head. Just once, but she does not need to do it any more than that. “but he will n0t f0rgive you”

“He deserves it at least.”

“what he deserves,” Aradia replies, “is a life that n0ne of us were g0ing t0 all0w him fr0m the start”

* * *

XI.

You had to kill him.

This is what you tell yourself when the memory of it grows too painful. His kind are meant to die. And he was trying to keep you away from her. Still… you know that he saw the future. You know that he saw Jade, in a time years distant from now.

You will see him one last time. You have made and will yet make sure of that.

 _“Mirmi etin tuklet,_ ” you whisper.“ _Shita wirg fluket jar ma…”_  

Aradia has spoken with her just once. Sollux comes about once a month. Eridan, slightly less than that and Terezi slightly more. You would be jealous of how much Jade likes her, but Terezi prefers to speak with Jade for only brief periods of time, after your daughter has woken up. Jade is _yours_ , and yours alone.

You brush your knuckles against her once again and she nestles ever deeper in your long locks of hair. She is seven, but she is short for her age and you are tall for any human, and so she almost manages to disappear into the folds of your robes and the quilt that has been draped around you both. You continue to rub her head with your other arm you tighten your hold on her. Through that part of you which is most intimately tied up with the Aspect of Life, you are made aware of the increased release of oxytocin that occurs in response to your actions.

Other chemicals flow through your own body at the same time, some of them in response to the knowledge that your daughter is content. A few of them do not have names, because you made them yourself and never revealed them to the world. You remodeled your physiology, your hormones and brain structure, to take on aspects that would promote bonding and attachment—to Jake and Jane, once upon a time, and now to Jade. Despite the pain, you were never able to swallow the idea of ridding yourself of these qualities that made you just as much a lusus as you were a troll or a god.

It is raining outside, and you can hear the drizzle and the pitter-pat through the large window that the two of you are sitting under. It makes for a lovely background to your nursery songs. You love the rain. Jade loves the rain. More than anything else you love that she loves it.

(More than anything else, you love  _her_ —but that was evident from the start)

There is a peal of thunder, but it is far away and not so loud that you cannot hear what she says amid the quiet roar. You tighten your grip around her and stiffen in reflex when you register her words. 

“Can you…” She yawns a little bit. “Can you tell me the story of the Fox Sister again, Mom?”

You have never called her your daughter. You have never told her that you were her mother. You were afraid. You were afraid and yet you needed to hear this so desperately and it was not until this moment that you knew how much you were  _starving_  for the name.

And yet. And yet… she never calls you that again. You wonder why, of course. But you are too afraid to ask, too afraid of what the answer might be. So instead it haunts your dreams, the fantasies that you have only because you needed so much to hear it again that you were willing to brave the nightmares and suffer the wasted hours, until you hate that you ever have to wake up at all. The only thing that pulls you back from the brink is the worried expression that you see on Jade’s face when you wake up one time to find her beside you, holding vigil.

“You were asleep for two days,” she tells you, and you are thankful that you fell asleep where you did, because you all of a sudden something shifts in your head and you realize that she only ate at all because the kitchen was so close to you.

You never sleep again. Nor do you ever again hear Jade call you by that most precious of names. And you will always wonder why that is so, what it was that you did wrong, or that you failed to do.


End file.
